OpenRaiser/Intern-Atlas huggingface dataset:
An Empirical Study of Low Precision Quantization for TinyML
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2022
Year: 2022

Tiny machine learning (tinyML) has emerged during the past few years aiming to deploy machine learning models to embedded AI processors with highly constrained memory and computation capacity. Low precision quantization is an important model compression technique that can greatly reduce both memory consumption and computation cost of model inference. In this study, we focus on post-training quantization (PTQ) algorithms that quantize a model to low-bit (less than 8-bit) precision with only a small set of calibration data and benchmark them on different tinyML use cases. To achieve a fair comparison, we build a simulated quantization framework to investigate recent PTQ algorithms. Furthermore, we break down those algorithms into essential components and re-assembled a generic PTQ pipeline. With ablation study on different alternatives of components in the pipeline, we reveal key design choices when performing low precision quantization. We hope this work could provide useful data points and shed lights on the future research of low precision quantization.
VirtualSync+: Timing Optimization with Virtual Synchronization
Venue: arXiv cs.AR 2022
Year: 2022

In digital circuit designs, sequential components such as flip-flops are used to synchronize signal propagations. Logic computations are aligned at and thus isolated by flip-flop stages. Although this fully synchronous style can reduce design efforts significantly, it may affect circuit performance negatively, because sequential components can only introduce delays into signal propagations but never accelerate them. In this paper, we propose a new timing model, VirtualSync+, in which signals, specially those along critical paths, are allowed to propagate through several sequential stages without flip-flops. Timing constraints are still satisfied at the boundary of the optimized circuit to maintain a consistent interface with existing designs. By removing clock-to-q delays and setup time requirements of flip-flops on critical paths, the performance of a circuit can be pushed even beyond the limit of traditional sequential designs. In addition, we further enhance the optimization with VirtualSync+ by fine-tuning with commercial design tools, e.g., Design Compiler from Synopsys, to achieve more accurate result. Experimental results demonstrate that circuit performance can be improved by up to 4% (average 1.5%) compared with that after extreme retiming and sizing, while the increase of area is still negligible. This timing performance is enhanced beyond the limit of traditional sequential designs. It also demonstrates that compared with those after retiming and sizing, the circuits with VirtualSync+ can achieve better timing performance under the same area cost or smaller area cost under the same clock period, respectively.
Transfer of Representations to Video Label Propagation: Implementation Factors Matter
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2022
Year: 2022

This work studies feature representations for dense label propagation in video, with a focus on recently proposed methods that learn video correspondence using self-supervised signals such as colorization or temporal cycle consistency. In the literature, these methods have been evaluated with an array of inconsistent settings, making it difficult to discern trends or compare performance fairly. Starting with a unified formulation of the label propagation algorithm that encompasses most existing variations, we systematically study the impact of important implementation factors in feature extraction and label propagation. Along the way, we report the accuracies of properly tuned supervised and unsupervised still image baselines, which are higher than those found in previous works. We also demonstrate that augmenting video-based correspondence cues with still-image-based ones can further improve performance. We then attempt a fair comparison of recent video-based methods on the DAVIS benchmark, showing convergence of best methods to performance levels near our strong ImageNet baseline, despite the usage of a variety of specialized video-based losses and training particulars. Additional comparisons on JHMDB and VIP datasets confirm the similar performance of current methods. We hope that this study will help to improve evaluation practices and better inform future research directions in temporal correspondence.
MS2M: A message-based approach for live stateful microservices migration
Venue: arXiv cs.SE 2022
Year: 2022

In the last few years, the proliferation of edge and cloud computing infrastructures as well as the increasing number of mobile devices has facilitated the emergence of many novel applications. However, that increase of complexities also creates novel challenges for service providers, for example, the efficient management of interdependent services during runtime. One strategy is to reallocate services dynamically by migrating them to suitable servers. However, not every microservice can be deployed as stateless instances, which leads to suboptimal performance of live migration techniques. In this work, we propose a novel live migration scheme focusing on stateful microservices in edge and cloud environments by utilizing the underlying messaging infrastructure to reconstruct the service's state. Not only can this approach be applied in various microservice deployment scenarios, experimental evaluation results also show a reduction of 19.92% downtime compared to the stop-and-copy migration method.
Facilitating Federated Genomic Data Analysis by Identifying Record Correlations while Ensuring Privacy
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2022
Year: 2022

With the reduction of sequencing costs and the pervasiveness of computing devices, genomic data collection is continually growing. However, data collection is highly fragmented and the data is still siloed across different repositories. Analyzing all of this data would be transformative for genomics research. However, the data is sensitive, and therefore cannot be easily centralized. Furthermore, there may be correlations in the data, which if not detected, can impact the analysis. In this paper, we take the first step towards identifying correlated records across multiple data repositories in a privacy-preserving manner. The proposed framework, based on random shuffling, synthetic record generation, and local differential privacy, allows a trade-off of accuracy and computational efficiency. An extensive evaluation on real genomic data from the OpenSNP dataset shows that the proposed solution is efficient and effective.
The Overlooked Classifier in Human-Object Interaction Recognition
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2022
Year: 2022

Human-Object Interaction (HOI) recognition is challenging due to two factors: (1) significant imbalance across classes and (2) requiring multiple labels per image. This paper shows that these two challenges can be effectively addressed by improving the classifier with the backbone architecture untouched. Firstly, we encode the semantic correlation among classes into the classification head by initializing the weights with language embeddings of HOIs. As a result, the performance is boosted significantly, especially for the few-shot subset. Secondly, we propose a new loss named LSE-Sign to enhance multi-label learning on a long-tailed dataset. Our simple yet effective method enables detection-free HOI classification, outperforming the state-of-the-arts that require object detection and human pose by a clear margin. Moreover, we transfer the classification model to instance-level HOI detection by connecting it with an off-the-shelf object detector. We achieve state-of-the-art without additional fine-tuning.
IoT Coverage Enhancement using Repetition in Energy Constrained Devices: an Analytic Approach
Venue: arXiv cs.IT 2022
Year: 2022

Novel Internet-of-Things (IoT) access technologies are emerging as part of the next generation cellular networks. These technologies are specifically oriented towards energy-limited IoT devices that are scattered far away from their serving base station. One of the key methods of achieving deep coverage is via repeated transmissions of data. However, repetition leads to higher energy consumption and reduces the device battery-lifetime. Thus, a trade-off between coverage and energy consumption exists and requires careful investigation. This paper evaluates the effects of transmission repetition on enhancing the probability of coverage and the cost of the incurred energy. Using an empirical repetition profile based on traffic load and device distance from the base station, we derive the coverage probability and energy profile models for IoT links that utilize two different diversity combining techniques. In particular, we focus on two common diversity combining that are; (i) Selection Combining (SC), and (ii) Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC). We utilize tools from stochastic geometry to formulate an analytic framework that compares these two combining methods. This framework can aid network designers in jointly maximizing the network coverage while minimizing the energy expenditure of devices.
Deep Binary Reinforcement Learning for Scalable Verification
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2022
Year: 2022

The use of neural networks as function approximators has enabled many advances in reinforcement learning (RL). The generalization power of neural networks combined with advances in RL algorithms has reignited the field of artificial intelligence. Despite their power, neural networks are considered black boxes, and their use in safety-critical settings remains a challenge. Recently, neural network verification has emerged as a way to certify safety properties of networks. Verification is a hard problem, and it is difficult to scale to large networks such as the ones used in deep reinforcement learning. We provide an approach to train RL policies that are more easily verifiable. We use binarized neural networks (BNNs), a type of network with mostly binary parameters. We present an RL algorithm tailored specifically for BNNs. After training BNNs for the Atari environments, we verify robustness properties.
DNN Training Acceleration via Exploring GPGPU Friendly Sparsity
Venue: arXiv cs.LG 2022
Year: 2022

The training phases of Deep neural network~(DNN) consumes enormous processing time and energy. Compression techniques utilizing the sparsity of DNNs can effectively accelerate the inference phase of DNNs. However, it is hardly used in the training phase because the training phase involves dense matrix-multiplication using General-Purpose Computation on Graphics Processors (GPGPU), which endorse the regular and structural data layout. In this paper, we first propose the Approximate Random Dropout that replaces the conventional random dropout of neurons and synapses with a regular and online generated row-based or tile-based dropout patterns to eliminate the unnecessary computation and data access for the multilayer perceptron~(MLP) and long short-term memory~(LSTM). We then develop a SGD-based Search Algorithm that produces the distribution of row-based or tile-based dropout patterns to compensate for the potential accuracy loss. Moreover, aiming at the convolution neural network~(CNN) training acceleration, we first explore the importance and sensitivity of input feature maps; and then propose the sensitivity-aware dropout method to dynamically drop the input feature maps based on their sensitivity so as to achieve greater forward and backward training acceleration while reserving better NN accuracy. To facilitate DNN programming, we build a DNN training computation framework that unifies the proposed techniques in the software stack. As a result, the GPGPU only needs to support the basic operator -- matrix multiplication and can achieve significant performance improvement regardless of DNN model.
A Survey of Surface Defect Detection of Industrial Products Based on A Small Number of Labeled Data
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2022
Year: 2022

The surface defect detection method based on visual perception has been widely used in industrial quality inspection. Because defect data are not easy to obtain and the annotation of a large number of defect data will waste a lot of manpower and material resources. Therefore, this paper reviews the methods of surface defect detection of industrial products based on a small number of labeled data, and this method is divided into traditional image processing-based industrial product surface defect detection methods and deep learning-based industrial product surface defect detection methods suitable for a small number of labeled data. The traditional image processing-based industrial product surface defect detection methods are divided into statistical methods, spectral methods and model methods. Deep learning-based industrial product surface defect detection methods suitable for a small number of labeled data are divided into based on data augmentation, based on transfer learning, model-based fine-tuning, semi-supervised, weak supervised and unsupervised.
Tevatron: An Efficient and Flexible Toolkit for Dense Retrieval
Venue: arXiv cs.IR 2022
Year: 2022

Recent rapid advancements in deep pre-trained language models and the introductions of large datasets have powered research in embedding-based dense retrieval. While several good research papers have emerged, many of them come with their own software stacks. These stacks are typically optimized for some particular research goals instead of efficiency or code structure. In this paper, we present Tevatron, a dense retrieval toolkit optimized for efficiency, flexibility, and code simplicity. Tevatron provides a standardized pipeline for dense retrieval including text processing, model training, corpus/query encoding, and search. This paper presents an overview of Tevatron and demonstrates its effectiveness and efficiency across several IR and QA data sets. We also show how Tevatron's flexible design enables easy generalization across datasets, model architectures, and accelerator platforms(GPU/TPU). We believe Tevatron can serve as an effective software foundation for dense retrieval system research including design, modeling, and optimization.
Staking Pools on Blockchains
Venue: arXiv cs.GT 2022
Year: 2022

On several proof-of-stake blockchains, agents engaged in validating transactions can open a pool to which others can delegate their stake in order to earn higher returns. We develop a model of staking pool formation in the presence of malicious agents and establish existence and uniqueness of equilibria. We then identify potential and risk of staking pools. First, allowing for staking pools lowers blockchain security. Yet, honest stake holders obtain higher returns. Second, by choosing welfare optimal distribution rewards, staking pools prevent that malicious agents receive large rewards. Third, when pool owners can freely distribute the returns from validation to delegators, staking pools disrupt blockchain operations, since malicious agents attract most delegators by offering generous returns.
Using Word Embeddings to Analyze Protests News
Venue: arXiv cs.CL 2022
Year: 2022

The first two tasks of the CLEF 2019 ProtestNews events focused on distinguishing between protest and non-protest related news articles and sentences in a binary classification task. Among the submissions, two well performing models have been chosen in order to replace the existing word embeddings word2vec and FastTest with ELMo and DistilBERT. Unlike bag of words or earlier vector approaches, ELMo and DistilBERT represent words as a sequence of vectors by capturing the meaning based on contextual information in the text. Without changing the architecture of the original models other than the word embeddings, the implementation of DistilBERT improved the performance measured on the F1-Score of 0.66 compared to the FastText implementation. DistilBERT also outperformed ELMo in both tasks and models. Cleaning the datasets by removing stopwords and lemmatizing the words has been shown to make the models more generalizable across different contexts when training on a dataset with Indian news articles and evaluating the models on a dataset with news articles from China.
Vertex Cover and Feedback Vertex Set Above and Below Structural Guarantees
Venue: arXiv cs.DS 2022
Year: 2022

Vertex Cover parameterized by the solution size k is the quintessential fixed-parameter tractable problem. FPT algorithms are most interesting when the parameter is small. Several lower bounds on k are well-known, such as the maximum size of a matching. This has led to a line of research on parameterizations of Vertex Cover by the difference of the solution size k and a lower bound. The most prominent cases for such lower bounds for which the problem is FPT are the matching number or the optimal fractional LP solution. We investigate parameterizations by the difference between k and other graph parameters including the feedback vertex number, the degeneracy, cluster deletion number, and treewidth with the goal of finding the border of fixed-parameter tractability for said difference parameterizations. We also consider similar parameterizations of the Feedback Vertex Set problem.
Hyperbolic Image Segmentation
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2022
Year: 2022

For image segmentation, the current standard is to perform pixel-level optimization and inference in Euclidean output embedding spaces through linear hyperplanes. In this work, we show that hyperbolic manifolds provide a valuable alternative for image segmentation and propose a tractable formulation of hierarchical pixel-level classification in hyperbolic space. Hyperbolic Image Segmentation opens up new possibilities and practical benefits for segmentation, such as uncertainty estimation and boundary information for free, zero-label generalization, and increased performance in low-dimensional output embeddings.
BabyNet: Reconstructing 3D faces of babies from uncalibrated photographs
Venue: arXiv cs.CV 2022
Year: 2022

We present a 3D face reconstruction system that aims at recovering the 3D facial geometry of babies from uncalibrated photographs, BabyNet. Since the 3D facial geometry of babies differs substantially from that of adults, baby-specific facial reconstruction systems are needed. BabyNet consists of two stages: 1) a 3D graph convolutional autoencoder learns a latent space of the baby 3D facial shape; and 2) a 2D encoder that maps photographs to the 3D latent space based on representative features extracted using transfer learning. In this way, using the pre-trained 3D decoder, we can recover a 3D face from 2D images. We evaluate BabyNet and show that 1) methods based on adult datasets cannot model the 3D facial geometry of babies, which proves the need for a baby-specific method, and 2) BabyNet outperforms classical model-fitting methods even when a baby-specific 3D morphable model, such as BabyFM, is used.
Mission planning for emergency rapid mapping with drones
Venue: arXiv cs.RO 2022
Year: 2022

We introduce a mission planning concept for routing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) through a set of sampling locations in the immediate aftermath of an incident such as a fire or chemical accident. Using interpolation methods that account for the spatial interdependencies inherent in the surveyed phenomenon, these samples allow predicting the distribution of hazardous substances across the affected area. We define the generalized correlated team orienteering problem (GCorTOP) for selecting {informative} samples considering spatial correlations between observed and unobserved locations as well as priorities in the surveyed area. To quickly provide high-quality solutions in time-sensitive situations, we propose a two-phase multi-start adaptive large neighborhood search (2MLS). We show the competitiveness of the solution approach using benchmark instances for the team orienteering problem and investigate the performance of the proposed models and solution approach in an extensive study based on newly introduced benchmark instances for the mission planning problem.
Communication Layer Security in Smart Farming: A Survey on Wireless Technologies
Venue: arXiv cs.CR 2022
Year: 2022

Human population growth has driven rising demand for food that has, in turn, imposed huge impacts on the environment. In an effort to reconcile our need to produce more sustenance while also protecting the ecosystems of the world, farming is becoming more reliant on smart tools and communication technologies. Developing a smart farming framework allows farmers to make more efficient use of inputs, thus protecting water quality and biodiversity habitat. Internet of Things (IoT), which has revolutionized every sphere of the economy, is being applied to agriculture by connecting on-farm devices and providing real-time monitoring of everything from environmental conditions to market signals through to animal health data. However, utilizing IoT means farming networks are now vulnerable to malicious activities, mostly when wireless communications are highly employed. With that in mind, this research aims to review different utilized communication technologies in smart farming. Moreover, possible cyber attacks are investigated to discover the vulnerabilities of communication technologies considering the most frequent cyber-attacks that have been happened.
Climate Change & Computer Audition: A Call to Action and Overview on Audio Intelligence to Help Save the Planet
Venue: arXiv cs.SD 2022
Year: 2022

Among the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed within the 2030 Agenda and adopted by all the United Nations member states, the 13$^{th}$ SDG is a call for action to combat climate change for a better world. In this work, we provide an overview of areas in which audio intelligence -- a powerful but in this context so far hardly considered technology -- can contribute to overcome climate-related challenges. We categorise potential computer audition applications according to the five elements of earth, water, air, fire, and aether, proposed by the ancient Greeks in their five element theory; this categorisation serves as a framework to discuss computer audition in relation to different ecological aspects. Earth and water are concerned with the early detection of environmental changes and, thus, with the protection of humans and animals, as well as the monitoring of land and aquatic organisms. Aerial audio is used to monitor and obtain information about bird and insect populations. Furthermore, acoustic measures can deliver relevant information for the monitoring and forecasting of weather and other meteorological phenomena. The fourth considered element is fire. Due to the burning of fossil fuels, the resulting increase in CO$_2$ emissions and the associated rise in temperature, fire is used as a symbol for man-made climate change and in this context includes the monitoring of noise pollution, machines, as well as the early detection of wildfires. In all these areas, computer audition can help counteract climate change. Aether then corresponds to the technology itself that makes this possible. This work explores these areas and discusses potential applications, while positioning computer audition in relation to methodological alternatives.